On 1 April 2016 at 03:39, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
 
If you really want linux on Windows, I would guess virtualbox or the
like would do a better job.

If you want command-line tools to muck within the Windows environment,
cygwin probably does the job as well.

​Why would you assume these things, not having actually compared them?

If the new facility allows native execution of Ubuntu binaries, wouldn't a cross-platform developer prefer having exactly the same shell? Is cygwin 100% in feature sync with bash?​

​While I can think of many reasons why to continue to prefer Linux as the underlying OS unless absolutely necessary​, IMO this move is significant for anyone who has to frequently work in both worlds.

It also confirms the altogether reasonable joint admissions by Microsoft and Canonical that:
  • The FOSS desktop as we know it (X, GNOME/KDE/XFCE etc) is as mainstream now as it will ever be, meaning "not much" (though semi-FOSS mutations such as MacOS, Android and ChromeOS have certainly done well for themselves)

  • Microsoft is a non-player in running the cloud, and if Windows wants to stay relevant it must play friendly with the OS that is dominant in that space at a level it has never done before.
​It's reasonable to disagree with these premises, many FOSS enthusiasts certainly will.​ But I think they're valid. This move is part of a realization that the desktop is on the decline and will eventually devolve into niches for administration, development, and creation. It's an attempt to keep it relevant in the first two areas (IMO it has ceded the third to Apple).

I see how Windows10 snoops on its users and I dislike Metro as a desktop interface -- so I could never use it as a daily platform, I'm not ditching my Mint desktop so long as the hardware allows it. 

PS: Windows' not running X is IMO a feature, not a bug. For decades, X has been an impediment to mainstream adoption, and is always many steps behind the state of the tech in proprietary display systems. To this day this means that I can have hardware graphics acceleration under Windows but not Linux -- a significant degradation, until some future kernel or X supports it (maybe). That lag is not compelling enough to lead to a switch away from Linux, but let's not delude ourselves that the choice of a FOSS desktop is not without sacrifice.

--
Evan Leibovitch
Geneva, CH
Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56